Toronto – Before Vampy Weekend was this massively popular band (and #1 spokesperson for cardigans), they contributed a cover of Radiohead‘s Exit Music For A Film for Stereogum’s 10 Year Tribute to Ok Computer compilation album. Did you know this? Me neither. The cover is a bit raw and obviously, doesn’t hold the same quality of the original. Either way, it’s worth checking out.

Vampire Weekend played the Molson Amphitheatre yesterday, so, rev up that delorean if you want to go see the show.

Vampire Weekend – Exit Music (For A Film) by SecretAsianBen

Toronto – In the least surprising music news of yesterday, The XX took home the prestigious Mercury Prize. I totally called it, but it was so painfully obvious even a blind man could see it. Here is the video for it, as you can see, they could barely contain their excitement.

By the way, whoever decided it was a good idea to have a disco track playing in the background of that video should be shot.

The XX deserved to win the prize. They made an amazing album that came out of left field and sounded like no other. Unique and original, it will be one of those albums you can put on five years from now and it’ll still stand the test of time. Now for those of you who haven’t seen them the three times they’ve been in Toronto, the XX play Massey Hall on September 29th.

Previous Winners

2009 – Speech Debelle – Speech Therapy
2008 – Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid
2007 – Klaxons – Myths of the Near Future
2006 – Arctic Monkey – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
2005 – Antony and the Johnsons – I Am a Bird Now

The XX – You’ve Got the Love (Florence and The Machine Cover) by curtisandcurtis

Toronto – It was only a matter of time before someone posted a response to Cee Lo Green‘s brilliant video Fuck You. This is simply, brilliant:

The original:

Toronto – It’s f’n Tuesday, but Monday was a bit of a write-off for me. Anyways, here is another long forgotten band from the UK Music wastebin of 1998-2002. With one of the worst band names of all time, the English band Seafood was formed in 1996 and and enjoyed a brief moment of non-anonymity in the early 2000s when everyone in England was searching long and hard for the next big band that could ignite the next great period in UK music. Sadly, Seafood was not that band but in it’s time, it had some pretty good singles that was heavy on guitar and sounded more like an early 90s US college band then something inspired by Blur. Either way, the song Western Battle is pretty good. Check it out.

Toronto – What a weekend. The start of September means a lot of things – back to school, the beginning of cold weather, NHL training camps, the start of NFL… It also means the start of an awesome concert season. Let’s take a look at the shows that hold our interest this week. This will be a two parter because there are SO many shows going on. I am also feeling very lazy.

Marina and the Diamonds

Sept 8, Opera House

To say I was impressed at Marina and The Diamonds showcase at SXSW would be a vast understatement. She pretty much crushed the show. It was so good. I’m not expecting that show to be replicated on the large stage at the cavernous Opera House, but I am sure she’ll put on a good show regardless.

Marina And The Diamonds – Hollywood (Acousti?) by apelzin

Check out her new video:

Vampire Weekend/Beach House

Sept 7, Molson Amphitheatre

The large Amphitheater seems like an odd space for two bands whose music seems best suited for indoor venues. This will be Beach House‘s third visit to Toronto this year and we enjoyed their March show. I’ve also enjoyed Vampire Weekend each time I’ve seen them so this show should be pretty good. There are still plenty of tickets available, so if you are feeling spontaneous, go see them.

Beach House – Zebra by mattpoco

Vampire Weekend – Everywhere (Fleetwood Mac Cover) by duncan_sprks

Efterklang / Buke & Gass

Sept 8, Lee’s Palace

Buke and Gass is a band that made some serious headlines at the ALLCAPS festival on the island last month and they are back in support of Danish band Efterklang on Wednesday. I am quite curious as to how their home made instruments turn out (buke – modified baritone ukulele and gass – guitar + bass hybrid). I guess Paul will have to let me know.

Buke and Gass – Medulla Oblongata by rocksteddie

Ratatat

Sept 8, Sound Academy

I’ll be the first to admit – I know very little about Ratatat. I know they do a few remixes and I may or may not have heard the song Seventeen Years. However, they are playing the dreaded Sound Academy, so that means many people know way more about them then I do – including Sarah, our fearless Sound Academy braving writer who will be attending the show. I would expect a good electronic show, followed by about 1/2 hour of wandering and fighting with other people trying to get a cab to go home afterwards.

Ratatat-Wildcat by Azursystem

Toronto – Whenever I go karaoke, I always queue up cheesy but good 90s pop songs like say, Take That – Back For Good or Wallflowers – One Headlight, and then proceed to yell into the mic, out of tone and occasionally out of pace. It is probably not a pretty sight, but with each release, I am starting to think if Fred Falke took the time to remix me yelling into a mic, it would probably sound awesome.

This is because every remix Fred Falke does is awesome. Whether he is remixing already dancing bands such as PNAU or harmonic based vocal bands like Grizzly Bear, everything this man from France does seems to turn into a pot of gold. He recently remixed the track Everything You Wanted by the singer Kele (from the Bloc Party) and yup, it’s great in that dreamy synthy syrup landscape kinda way. The chorus now soars instead of flies and its just a great extension to one of the better songs on Kele’s solo debut, The Boxer.

Kele – Everything You Wanted (Fred Falke Remix) by Fred Falke

Kele also plays an early show tonight at the Mod Club.

Toronto – Liverpool band The Wombats will always have a place in my heart somewhere. Their 2007 debut – The Wombats Proudly Present: A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation was a great indie pop album with solid hooks, catchy choruses and uncanny pop references. You may have heard of the singles Kill The Director, Moving to New York or Lets Dance to Joy Divison. I liked them even more after one of my favorite recent shows – The InBetweeners, used their music excessively throughout the show (along with Kate Nash’s Foundations).

Well it’s been three years and the band is back with the first single off their new album. The track features what I am now guessing is the trademark Wombats pop sound – clever little lyrics and an undeniably catchy chorus. Check out the video:

Toronto – Ruby Coast has always been one of those bands I’ve heard about, but have never heard. However, that streaked stopped recently when I listened to the Aurora, Ontario band’s recently released free EP – Whatever This Is/Creep Me Out which is free with a tweet or a facebook post. Get used to social media marketing, folks. Anyways, from the two songs I’ve heard, the Ruby Coast is a fairly upbeat indie pop band not too much different from another north of Toronto band – Tokyo Police Club. Both tracks are good, and if this is a steady sampling of what their debut is going to sound like, then sign me up.

Here are the videos:
Creep Me Out
Whatever This Is

Once again, the link for downloading these songs is here

Here are some Canadian tour dates:
Sept. 09: North Bay, ON @ Nipissing University
Sept. 11: Thunder Bay, ON @ Lakehead U
Sept. 18: Newmarket, ON @ Studio Five Salon (free)
Sept. 24: Toronto, ON @ Unit C (loft party)
Oct. 01: Ottawa, ON @ Cafe Nostalgica (free)
Oct. 02: Montreal, QC @ Petit Campus (Pop MTL)
Oct. 08: London, ON @ Alex P Keaton
Oct. 09: Sarnia, ON @ Trinity Lounge

Haha there’s a school with the word pissing in it.

If you were to ask me who I thought was the most talented songwriter in the world, you might think I’d be hard pressed to come up with a definitive answer.

You’d be wrong.

In the hybrid category of overall singer / composer / musician of 26-odd instruments, there can only be one winner. Prince Rogers Nelson takes this title without any hesitation on my part, and despite his going off the eccentric Jehovah’s Witness deep-end well over a decade ago, I still think he is the most talented musical icon of all time. He trumps Madonna in chart-accessible rebirth. He kicks the Beatles’ catalog. He oozes pop from his every orifice. He is the most overtly sexual songwriter of all time. And more so than anyone else I can name, Prince has consistently proved that he is an endless factory of eclecticism, genuine sexuality, and ass-shakingness, which brings us to 1999.

1999 arguably takes the cake in terms of best party album of all time. Everything on this damn thing makes you want to either scream-sing at the top of your lungs or embrace the loose morality of getting “down” with your bad self (Dance Music Sex Romance). This album embodies the most positive and life-affirming heathen ethics. There are some gems on here that never fully hit the public’s radar with the full breadth I would’ve expected it to, and it’s puzzling to me why some of them weren’t chart toppers while others were.

Out of all of the albums I’m reviewing for this series, I would have to say that this is the most primal and lighthearted, least cerebral, and surprisingly, least emotional. All 1999 incites in me is a desire to get out like a dancing, singing fool (and I emphasize the fool part).

The album’s title track was something I couldn’t listen to throughout the 00′s, abandoning it due to Y2K overplay. It feels kind of like fictional farce 11 years later, but the nail-biting in 1999 was real. My computer science professor had managed to convince us all that the bulk of the world was running on COBOL, which was incapable of handling the rollover to 2000. Everything will revert back to 1900!, he said, and we either apathetically or stupidly semi-believed him (what can I say, he was dumb, and we were dumber). Listening to 1999 again, I think it’s a shame that it carried the taint of Y2K mania. It’s still an ultimate party song with all of the trimmings.

Let’s go through the rest:

Little Red Corvette – Prince seems to have a shitload of songs that play as explicit sexual innuendo. He is one of the few people who is able to balance “suggestive” with “crude”, while still staying under the radar of pop culture. It’s hard to believe that LRC is still Prince’s biggest hit to date, but then I used to listen to it like the dickens, not really picking up on anything it really meant (essentially sleeping with a slut). The drum beat is still ultra tight.

Delirious – Much of this feels borrowed from “Horny Toad”, but no matter. Another example of sex flying below the censors. Probably the weakest track off the album–weird to think this charted.

Let’s Pretend We’re Married – Another favorite that didn’t receive as much attention…I always notice this as a conspicuous oversight in all “best of” Prince collections, and I’m not sure why it never captured public imagination as much as some others.  “If you’re free for the next couple of hours / If you’re free for the next seven years!”

D.M.S.R. – May very well be my favorite track off the entire album. Over 8 minutes of ass shaking, love making, I guess this is the whole theme of the entire album. We’re all going to hell, but we might as well enjoy a lot of sex in the meantime, irregardless. I just felt like using the word “irregardless” there.

Automatic – Another gem. More than anyone else, Prince has a way with keyboards, and the head boppingness makes you completely forget about the completely inane lyrics.

Something in the Water (does not compute) and Free were kind of write-offs, with Free being the sort of life after death ballad that athiests ignore. Looking at the album’s two main themes, every song either revolves around sex, love or fear of God.

Lady Cab Driver – Sure, the sounds oddly like Irresistible Bitch, but if anyone were to ask me what good, accessible funk music was, I’d point them to Lady Cab Driver. It’s easy to see why Prince was such a ladies man in spite of the fact that he essentially looked like a short, wizened monkey in high heels.

All the Critics Love U in New York – Kind of an eerie number, but catchy nonetheless.

International Lover – Totally reminiscent of a jazzier Nothing Compares 2 U.

Although so many of these songs remind me of so many others in Prince’s catalog, I have to say that no one recycles like this man (and anyone who writes over 15,000 songs can be excused for some creative borrowing from himself). He has the ability to make new out of something familiar; to make something filthy sound innocuous; and to make a 9 minute musical tirade feel palatable.

Toronto – Once, when I was a young undergrad studying everything I could (except science and math), my philosophy professor told me that I had a penchant for the absurd. Of course, he was referring to my (admittedly annoying) habit of exaggerating basically everything: “But Sir! How can you say that love doesn’t exist? Love is what happens when you walk around with Mariah Carey stuck in your head and you’re so happy that you couldn’t stop smiling if you got hit by a bus and…and… hey don’t walk away!” I may have been irritating, but I have certainly never lacked creativity.

It’s that same over-the-top absurdity that I liked most about the Shoeless Comedy Troupe’s performance at Bread and Circus. Many of the skits were positively brimming with ridiculousness, which encouraged the audience to examine life from a slightly crooked, but extremely creative new angle. The absurdity of each skit remained consistent throughout – a big plus, considering that the first half of the show was somewhat lacking in the funny department.

Fortunately, as evidenced by the audience’s uncontrollable fits of laughter, the quality of humour increased greatly throughout the second half of the show. A shining example of this would be the screamingly funny garden skit. At least half of us are familiar with the infamous “he loves me, he loves me not” daisy-picking ritual. But have you ever considered what it would be like to be the daisy? To have your petals plucked forcefully from your head in the name of infatuation? And – if they could – how would the other flowers in the garden react to this act of sheer brutality? In character as ‘the daisy’, actress Inga Breede had the audience in stitches in the funniest, most exaggerated example of personification I have ever seen.

Despite having a large cast, the talent behind Shoeless was surprisingly lackluster. Although the actors performed well together, the most talented comedians were undoubtedly Ned Petrie and Jamie Murray. Originally from London England, Murray’s ability to imitate a variety of different accents added extra ‘umph’ to his outstanding performance and Petrie’s unique sense of humour was often the focal point of many successful jokes. He had the audience roaring while in character as a Toronto tour bus guide. He sarcastically pointed out Chinatown’s notorious rat infestation, Queen Street’s ‘hipster douchebags’ and Richmond Street; regularly invaded by Oakville teens on a Friday or Saturday night. Petrie and Murray were just as outstanding together as they were alone – especially in a skit that involves them sharing a passionate bed-time kiss. This duo had the audience in stitches for the majority of the evening.

Overall, I found the show to be enjoyable. Although it boasted about as many lows as it did highs, the highs were exceptional and were the show’s saving grace. And who can argue with the brilliantly written absurdity that is the script? Call me biased, but I respect and admire the writers’ ability to warp reality, and I maintain my belief that exaggeration is, without a doubt, one of the most creative forms of self-expression.

For upcoming shows and ticket info, check out the official Shoeless website here.